Life full of long lines, laundry and U-turns

In a rush to do a long list of errands, I tried to plan my stops in an orderly fashion to make the most of mileage and time.

It would help, of course, if there were anything remotely orderly about my nature, which, I have to confess, there is not.

Pulling out of the driveway, I waved to the gardeners next door and started making a mental list of stops:

The bank for money. The post office for stamps. The cheese shop to get a surprise gift for nevermind who. The market to get something to go with the gift, nevermind what. And the dry cleaners to drop off ...

Wait. My husband's shirts. I forgot them. Making a U-turn, I doubled back, waved again at the gardeners and ran in the house to get the shirts.

While inside, I decided to check my e-mail, make one last pit stop and grab the cell phone I'd forgotten, along with ... oh, wait, the shirts. I almost forgot them again.

Finally, I got back in my car, glad to see the gardeners were gone so I didn't have to wave.

I wanted to drop the shirts off first (my husband was near the point of going to work naked), but I got distracted by a passing car that appeared, I swear, to be driven by a poodle, and I drove right past the cleaners. So I had to play traffic-light roulette and make yet another U-turn.

After the cleaners, I went to the bank. The drive-through line looked longer than the Indy 500, but there was only one woman at the counter, so I parked and ran to get in line behind her. She then proceeded with 50 transactions, including, I believe, a re-fi on her home.

Next, at the post office, the 15 folks in line looked like a scene from "Night of the Living Dead." So I tried to buy stamps from a vending machine. Big mistake.

Apparently, the machine did not like me or my credit card. I tried not to take this personally. It did, however, seem to like the young woman behind me, who rolled her eyes and showed me, duh, the proper way to use it.

Suddenly, I was tired. And hollow-eyed hungry. So I took a break for lunch — tomato soup — and while I ate, I opened mail.

A reader in Alabama mourned the death of her brother. A grandfather in Arkansas reminisced about his youth. A woman in Ohio, in a faltering relationship, said she longs to have a baby and fears she's running out of time. A single mother in Texas lost her job and worries that she and her children will be homeless.

Remarkably, in every letter, each one of them found reasons to be thankful.

An hour later, on my way to the cheese shop, I kept thinking about the people who'd written and how our lives — theirs, mine and yours — seldom go according to plan.

We try hard to put them in order, to line up the milestones like planes on a runway, like errands on a list: First, we'll grow up. Next, we'll get married. Then we'll have children and live happily ever after.

But life defies order, laughs at our plans. It's full of forgotten laundry, long lines, U-turns, missed opportunities and all sorts of machines that don't seem to like us.

Years ago, when my children were small, I had a revelation. We were camping. It was raining. I was miserable.

Then I looked down at my 2-year-old, who was sopping wet, caked with mud. And he was beaming up at me as if it were a miracle, the best day of his life, and I alone had made it happen.

Life is not the dream vacation we plan. It's what happens in a leaky tent in the pouring rain.

I try to remember that, but at times, I forget. Lucky for me, I have readers who remind me.